


break another heart, tell another lie

by Smilla



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2009, Episode: The End, Future Castiel, Future Dean, M/M, Spn Season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-21
Updated: 2010-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-08 04:37:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Smilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future Dean/Future Castiel - NC-17 - Missing scene to 5.04 The End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	break another heart, tell another lie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for maboheme for Fandom Free For All, based on the prompt of Dean/Castiel, a shared moment of peace during the war; hurt/comfort is fine. The h/c is minimal, but I hope you like it, love. Title from There You Go by Johnny Cash.  
> Beta love to aesc. Mistakes are mine.

**break another heart, tell another lie**  
*

You're gonna break another heart, you're gonna tell another lie  
Well here I am and there you go, you're gone again  
I know you're gonna be the way you've always been

-*-

Castiel is packing his bag when he hears him coming.

Dean's left leg drags, nothing more than a negligible slide, less strength in the thump of his boot against the floor: a bad wound two years before. Nobody but Castiel notices it, as versed as he is in cataloguing all that pertains to Dean.

He zips his bag shut, throws it onto the floor, and turns on time to see Dean push aside the blanket hanging from the doorframe. Over the years, Dean has been many things : Castiel's charge, a weapon to whet and mould to Heaven's purposes, then friend and _dear_, a substitute for Faith when Castiel's dithered. An upheaval – like looking at light-years of genetic beliefs and finding them irremediably lacking.

Now Dean is only a man, broken and trapped in his mortal body. Castiel suspects, is afraid, that Dean's always been just that.

"Are you here to check up on me?" Castiel asks - dares. He open his arms, stretches his lips into a smile. "See? I'm all set."

Dean says nothing, lingers on the doorsill; backlit, his face is dark. When he enters, the blanket falls with a soft whoosh and a breath of dust, swings back and forth before it settles. Dean finds the chair under a heap of dirty clothes. He sits, back straight, legs spread open.

Castiel thinks, _nervous_, and sits on his bed, legs crossed, his own back liquid over the curve of flat pillow and iron bedpost. There's half a joint on the stool and he picks it up, rolls it between his fingers, lights it with closed eyes. The fragrance of the weed isn't pure, an aftertaste of chemicals in the blue smoke spiraling out of his mouth.

Dean says nothing but throws something onto the bed; a small bundle wrapped in paper inked with old news. It's light and it bounces twice before it stops against Castiel's right foot. He glances at Dean: the dim light of late afternoon slanting through the window doesn't clear the shadows from Dean's face, eyes sunken in black pools, flat.

He nudges the package with the tip of his boot. It has dark spots in a corner, brownish like it's been dipped in blood; maybe it's simple mud.

"What is it?" he asks, has to clear his throat from the veil of smoke coating it.

Dean doesn't answer – he never talks a lot when he visits Castiel, never talks a lot period unless he's barking orders. He stretches his left arm instead and reaches for the pack of cigarettes on the table, taps one free with his forefinger, leaves it hanging unlit between his fingers. Dean will smoke it later, _after_. It's all part of a ritual that, no matter how infrequent, it has to follow the same rules.

"A gift?" Castiel asks, and then he thinks _apology_ and picks up the parcel. He rips the paper one-handed, finds a plastic bag inside, then he angles it toward the light trying to guess what it contains.

"_Artemisia absinthium,_" Dean enunciates slowly. "For your distillate."

Castiel's breath catches in his throat even as a laugh breaks free, the sound shrill to his own ears. "Why, thank you," he says.

He throws the bag on the stool and lets the ball of crumpled paper fall onto the floor. A glance at Dean's face when he stands shows him ire, but Castiel thinks _disappointment_ like an echo underneath, and his own irritation dissipates. Dean's apologies are few and far in between, they are cigarettes and scented candles, a smoke-blackened icon once – a long time ago when Castiel prayed every night, knees aching on the freezing ground – the face of his Father burned from nose down so that only His sad eyes remained.

Castiel shakes his head, finds two glasses. The light's nearly gone, now, and he uses his hand and memory to find the matches. Victorious, he scratches one with a nail and lights a long, thin candle. The flame is pure white in the middle, leaves a bright smudge against his cornea that shrinks to a point when he blinks.

He crushes what remains of his joint into an ashtray, says, "Why are you here, Dean?" He knows, but he has to ask.

Dean's answer is an imperceptible lift of his shoulder, shifting shadows and golden light across his left cheekbone, alongside the edge of his jaw and the shapeless bulk of his oversized jacket.

Castiel's room is very small, the space taken over by the bed and the table thrust under the window, some kind of counter he uses as closet, and the chair. The way Dean's sitting, Castiel can only climb across his legs if he wants to get away. He doesn't.

He turns toward the table. A glance at his watch tells him they have time before leaving for what Castiel suspects is a night-long drive straight into death's arms. It's not unexpected the measure of comfort he takes in the thought, the first time in so long; it brings some kind of peace, stills the constant shaking of his hands so that the bottle doesn't chime against the glass. There's not much absinthe left in the bottle, maybe three fingers, and Castiel pours it all in two glasses, down to the last drop. The empty bottle ends onto the floor with a thud, then rolls under the bed.

He finds the packs of sugar and rips open two, then asks, "Water?" Dean reaches in the inside pocket of his jacket and hands him his silver flask of holy water. The emblazoned cross is smooth under Castiel's fingertips, flattened by too much handling. He measures three spoonfuls of water for each glass, stares as the liquor turns turbid, denser, a muddy shade of startling green.

"To killing the Devil," Castiel toasts cheerful.

They both drink. Castiel standing, hip thrust against the edge of the table. He takes small sips, chases the taste of anise and menthol under the dominant one of absinthe. Dean twirls his glass twice, head bowed, then he tosses the liquor down.

"Where is," Castiel waves a hand toward Dean's body, "you?"

Dean's smile is lopsided, deceptive. "Chuck's giving him lists of things to hoard before the apocalypse." A beat, then, "He won't listen."

Yes, Dean's probably right.

"Just out of curiosity," Castiel asks, "why are you bringing him with us tomorrow?"

Dean's lowered eyes are an answer themselves. Castiel double checks, thinks _hope_, an opaque, shivering glimmer.

"Dean," he says, steps toward Dean but Dean's standing abruptly, familiar anger around him like the red halo of a candle.

"Why are you coming, huh?" Dean says. "You want to see this end as much as I do. That's why I'm going to take him with us tomorrow."

_Lies_, Castiel thinks and blocks Dean mid step with his body when he starts to pace. Castiel says, "No. That's not the reason I'm coming."

Dean rubs his hair then his eyes until they're red-rimmed. "Cas," he says, and sounds wrecked. Castiel thinks _regret_, but it's hidden so well it may be his imagination. "Then you should stay," Dean continues. "It was never worth it."

Castiel tends to agree, but it's a brand of self-deception harder to pull off in the half-night of his own room, with the illusory shell of Dean's constant fury cracked open to reveal the blood beneath. Idly, as he drags Dean's face closer, he realizes that he covets the depths of Dean's feelings, how rampant they are, after all, after everything, when Castiel can only manage a bored interest and an impatient waiting on the best days. Dean's lips are already open against his own, cracked and dry. He bites on them hard in petty retaliation.

The springs under the mattress squeak under their combined weight when he drags Dean onto his bed, then they groan as they both twist to get rid of their clothes – never completely naked, no – pants zipped open and pushed down their hips and a frantic slide of skin on skin from cock to stomach and the hard ridges of their ribs. Castiel's mouths latches on Dean's neck where Dean tastes of sweat and grime and Dean's skin and spilled blood; he thinks _death_, and licks at it, even as he pushes Dean away and turns him over, palm fitting over the curve of the hipbone, then to the left where Dean's skin is soft and whiter even in the gloom.

Wet fingers and humid skin and a slow glide inside, Dean's breath against Castiel's palm, the deep furrow of Dean's spine as he arches and pushes back. Castiel flattens a hand between Dean's shoulder blades to still him. Dean resists at first, a token protest, but then he gives into a tense immobility Castiel knows won't last long.

There's a scratch under Castiel's thumb, on the left side of Dean's spine, the edges red, inflamed; other scars are translucent lines scattered over Dean's back. All Castiel's works undone by long years of self-punishment. Castiel had re-made Dean patiently: mended broken bones, knitted the complicated textures of muscles and blood vessels, fused skin together over the gaping wounds left by the hellhound. Dean had been unblemished and smooth and new.

Dean's patience is notoriously short and he moves, distracts Castiel from that memory: Dean's always going to drive the car. Castiel gives him a decision over the pace, and keep for himself the one over depth, increases it when Dean goes frenzied, a bit desperate: snaps of hips and coarse hairs, the firm feel of Dean in Castiel's hand, around him, _everywhere_.

Castiel breathes his orgasm into the crook between Dean's neck and shoulder, braces Dean when he tenses over his own – silent like a graveyard.

The quiet, after, lasts two long minutes, then they're side by side, half-naked, a sliver of space between them like a carefully drawn border. Dean turns and bends toward the floor to find his fallen cigarette. Castiel takes one for himself. The first drag of smoke causes Dean to cough – not used to it – then his lungs settle and the tip is red and bright as he inhales, casts a red light over Dean's face.

Castiel closes his eyes, he'd sink right here, inside the mattress and underneath, into the ground, become fertilizer for the dying earth. He will. Tomorrow.

When Dean stands he doesn't look, hears the rustle of clothes and the snap of Dean's belt being buckled back.

"Cas," Dean says. "I have to try. I have to... Sam is …. This may be my last chance."

Castiel nods, blinks his eyes open and Dean back into focus. Dean's eyes are large, a flash of pleading in them suddenly gone so that Castiel wonders if he's imagined it, in its place the hard edge of his jaw as he looks away, swallows.

"I'm sorry, Cas," Dean says and he's gone.

Castiel follows the minimal drag of Dean's left leg until it fades into the outside noises of engines humming idly and men talking and shouting as they prepare for their death.

He thinks, _redemption, deliverance, peace_. Sam's. The world's. Even his own. Their importance faded like his missing Grace.

The simple truth is that Castiel only wishes them for Dean.

\--


End file.
